A Worthwhile (!!) facebook Post

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I spend as little time as possible on facebook: there's seldom anything there that's
really worth reading, or pondering.

But a few days ago my daughter posted a tweet (which I don't do at all) on facebook
that seemed worth re-posting to my friends, and worth mentioning here.

It's from someone named Mark Sandlin, whom I think is a pastor:

"After close study, I have concluded that Jesus believed there are two kinds of people:
your neighbors, whom you are supposed to love; and your enemies, whom you are
supposed to love."

AMEN !!


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Loving Truth (Even on Facebook)

I have a facebook "friend" ("friended" because she's the wife of a real-life friend) who continually posts all the current political/social lies. Among other things, she posts a lot of tea party stuff (including regular posts from the Australian Tea Party....!?!?!?)

As a Christian, I have to see lies as spiritual warfare. Jesus said He IS "the Truth." He called satan "the father of lies." It's as simple as Jesus said: spreading lies is working for the enemy. By definition, a lie contradicts Truth, as when "The serpent said...'You surely will not die !' " (Genesis 3:4). By nature, a lie is a Personal denial of Jesus Christ.

Even the evil secular world recognizes the simple moral judgement that lies are wrong. Even the spiritually-blind can see that following lies produces disastrous results: who can ignore the utter destruction of Germany when it followed Hitler's "Big Lie" ? In terms of the Bible's deeper moral wisdom, lies are spiritual poison to those who ingest them, producing spiritual death. What kind of "friend" feeds their friends poison ?

Believing what Jesus said, it's painful, infuriating in the extreme, to see Christians (CHRISTIANS !!!) spreading lies on facebook, in e-mail, in their blogs. The only good way I've found to respond to Christians (?) who do the enemy's work is to point out their "facts" don't measure up to Truth...as non-judgementally as possible.

"Non-judgementally" because personal culpability is not the ultimate point here. Personal failing we ALL have always with us: and calling each other evil names short-circuits our receptivity to reproof. To get across the spiritual evil of lies, our best hope is that "friends" who spread them are not so personally invested in them that they personally identify with the lie. It's helpful that virtually all e-mail and facebook lies are authored by Anonymous: giving greater possibility that whosoever will can more dispassionately (and honestly) compare someone else's false "facts" with verifiable reality.

It's noteworthy that "honesty," "fact," and "reality" all, in one regard or another, relate to TRUTH. Even more noteworthy that all are expressions of what really exists...of I AM. In the same way that Creation declares God's glory (Psalms 19:1) and His righteousness (Psalms 50:6) such that all men see it (Psalms 97:6), I understand that the Truth through Whom all things came into being (John 1) is indelibly stamped on the human world in full view of All humankind. Most of all do we, who claim to follow that One Who IS "the Truth," have to LOVE Truth in our honesty to facts and reality. Sadly, if our e-mails, facebook posts, and blogs are a reliable indicator, such honest love is severely lacking in the heavily-politicized American Church.

Fortunately, there are a number of good fact-checking sites online whose honest research verify if the latest political-social factoid actually happened, or if some partisan interpretational "spin" is truthful. I reference and forward those pages when I want to non-judgementally confront a "friend" who's spreading lies. The hope is that anyone with a spiritual consciousness of "Truth," any who honestly love Him, will understand, and repent of these lies.

The deeper question is one that's intrigued me for over 40 years: WHY do people believe lies ? I grew up in a neighborhood only a few miles from the world headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a number of kids I grew up with were RLDS or Mormon (indeed, our high-school graduation was held in the RLDS temple next to the parking-lot where Mormons claim Jesus will return to earth). My spiritual awareness as a teenager was practically nil, only the rudiments impressed on my unwillingly mind by years of Southern Baptist Sunday School and sermons: but I remember wondering even then how nice folks, intelligent people, could believe the stuff my Mormon friends did ?

The question came into sharper focus in the early '70s. I was mostly apolitical at the time, a former druggie recently begun to walk in Christ: but we were all hyper-aware of the Watergate drama playing out daily. It seemed obvious to me then, as it does even more today, that President Nixon was lying his ass off to save himself. But my parents, longtime Nixon followers, entirely believed his lies that he hadn't done anything wrong, and that everything negative being said about him was the work of political enemies out to get him.

My parents were "good," church-going people, and they weren't stupid. Yet they believed Nixon's lies to the day they died. It put the question prominently before me again: why do good, intelligent people believe manifest lies ?

Even after 40 years, I have difficulty understanding how it can be. It's more clear to me than ever that accepting Truth, or believing a lie, is a moral choice God gives us. More clear too that following Truth (Jesus) is the Way (Jesus) of Life (Jesus) and blessing: and following a lie the sure road to destruction and death. But the best answer I've come up with why people would choose the latter, is that they want to.

My facebook "friend," perhaps in oblique reference to the many times I've challenged her lying posts, recently posted this (itself by an anonymous author):

"Just because I post it, doesn't mean I'm going through it and it doesn't mean that it's directed at anyone. Maybe it's just that I like what I read or what I see and so I share it. I am Human!"

The attempt to disavow responsibility for one's own posts ("Just because I post it...") seems disingenuous on the face of it. But I doubt my "friend" really means it, anyway. Her admission that "...it's just that I like what I read or what I see and so I share it" sounds very much like she recognizes she's responsible for what she posts.

But my focus was on her reason for posting lies: "...I like [them]." That part of her statement seems very honest, and confirmation of my small understanding why people believe lies: it pleases us to do so. In the broad view, the autonomous ("self-law") mind of man in rebellion against God, accepts and acts on no authority higher than its own: we want to do what pleases us.

The problem of being governed by our autonomous mind could not be more stark than it is in regard to Truth: as stark as (and part of) the choice between death and Life (Whom Jesus also said He IS). God gives us a free choice: will we love and follow Truth, and live...or do as we please ? Everything in His governing reality, framed and fashioned by His Word of Truth, follows from that choice.

Woe to American Christianity, whose public testimony (in its facebook posts, e-mails, and blogs) is that it "likes" lies !!

God, Father of mercy, break our evil hearts to REPENT before You !!!